"Misfortune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Misfortune is not without its uses to the thoughtful mind. The more clearly I had realized the pain and pity of having to break a sacred bond, the more profoundly I felt that where marriage is wanting, is in certain elements of happiness and justice of too lofty a ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... another, Helen might have to be satisfied with a simpler mode of life. It hurt him to think of this, because he had hoped to beautify the house still further, so that she should miss nothing she had been used to in the Old Country. It was obvious that she understood something of his misfortune, for her look was sympathetic; but she let him finish his supper before ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... shivered a little, I thought. "That's what causes me to wonder, Doctor," she said. "There is an effect upon her. She can foretell the condition of her disease. She seems conscious that her life depends on the welfare of something else or the misfortune and suffering of ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... when he was informed of his mother's death, but his was not a temperament to be seriously affected by the misfortune of another. His own interests were uppermost ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... trusting to the fast sailing of my vessel and the guns which I had on board. I forgot at the time that the insurance on the vessel was made in England as 'sailing with convoy,' and that my sailing without would render the insurance void, if any misfortune occurred. Well, sir, I made sail for England, and for three weeks everything went on well. We saw very few vessels, and those which did chase us could not come up with us; but as we were running with a fair wind up channel, and I had made sure of being in port before ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... number of unforeseen and unfavorable circumstances, which, though they ought not to detract from the merit and good intention of our great ally, have nevertheless lessened the importance of its services in a great degree. The length of the passage, in the first instance, was a capital misfortune; for had even one of common length taken place, Lord Howe, with the British ships-of-war and all the transports in the river Delaware, must inevitably have fallen; and Sir Henry Clinton must have had better luck than is commonly dispensed to men of his profession under such ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... issue. What had once been only his own misfortune, mischance, whatever it was, had now become of vital importance to an entire group of hitherto disinterested people. He would have to put his situation clearly before them and let them judge. And he would have to clarify that situation for them and ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to take some pride in me, was confounded when he understood that I did not intend to go to Bob Mosely's; but when I told him my misfortune, and that I had no dress: 'By the powers,' cried he, 'but you shall go, and you shall be the best dressed and the best mounted ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... deeds, I heard her sigh, and the sigh, sinking down into the furthermost recesses of my soul, drowned all my thoughts of rash deeds in a thousand reverberating echoes. I have been invariably warned by strangers against taking a false step that would unquestionably have led to the direst misfortune. I meet a stranger, and without the slightest hint from me, he touches upon the very matter uppermost in my mind, and, in a few earnest and never-to-be-forgotten words of admonition, deters me from my scheme. Whence come these strangers, to all appearance of flesh and blood ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... to richly deserved misfortune, our commiseration, and be not over-hasty meanwhile in our censure of the French people, left for the first time to govern themselves, remembering that wise sentence ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... me whether I speak or remain silent. I will give my reasons without asking yours in return, for I have no interest in you at all. I care neither for your happiness nor your misfortune, and it matters not to me whether you think one way or another. Why should I love you, or hate you? Aversion and sympathy are equally unworthy of the wise man. But since you question me, know then that I am named Timocles, and that I was born at Cos, of ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... to win you by gentleness, but you are not worthy of it. I have endured much at your hands and will continue to endure," said Apollonius; "you are my brother. You blame me for having driven you into misfortune; God is my witness that I have done everything that I knew to hold you back. For whom have I done what you reproach me with doing, if not for you, and for the sake of your honor and to save your wife and your children? Who compelled me to be hard on you? For whom do I work? For whom am I doing ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... better so because those lords would some time or other do us harm. I had the greatest difficulty to deliver them from the flames but finally I saved them. 9. After all the Indians of this island were reduced to servitude and misfortune like those of Hispaniola, and when they saw they were all perishing inevitably, some began to flee to the mountains; others to hang themselves in despair; husbands and wives hanged themselves, together with their children, and through the cruelty of one very tyrannical Spaniard whom I knew, ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... ship quantities of stores, such as canvas to shelter the homeless people, and barrels of salt provisions as their victuals. The inhabitants after a while becoming somewhat reconciled to their misfortune, we left St. John's to see it no more, or so we then understood. We sailed for Bermuda, calling on the way at Halifax. "Just another cruise to the West Indies, boys, and then to dear old England," was ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... matter-of-fact view. In the rector's eyes apparently his dignity had not suffered by the incident. But when a moment later he passed a group of Fourth Formers and they turned and stared at him, grinning, he felt that his dignity had suffered very much. He felt that within a short time his misfortune would be the ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... piece of white paper, with a hole in the middle, through which a string was to be passed, to tie the charm round the neck. Erica shook her head. Such a charm would be of no use, as she did not know under what particular shape of misfortune Nipen's displeasure would show itself. Besides, she was certain that nothing would make Rolf wear a charm; and she disdained to use any security which he might not share. Olaf could not help her in any other way; but inquired with sympathy when the next festival would take place. ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... tapped the decanter for his first glass, before he hears a tap at his door. The hospitable "Come in!" is answered by the appearance of Mr. Dunne Brown, a captain by courtesy, and Snoxall's neighbour by misfortune. Here business begins. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... order that no such thing may ever happen to thee, be on thy guard: let not thy misfortune be such as to enter into any private conversation, with monk or layman. For if I were to know or hear it, even if I were much farther away than I am, I would give thee such a discipline that it would stay in thy memory all thy whole life; never mind who may be by. Beware ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... she has never yet prospered, rooted in the great law which Christ laid down for her: "Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you." If the men are found to guide it, philanthropy will become a golden ladder of opportunity by which all in misfortune and misery may climb, not only to sufficiency and happiness here, but to purity and plenty for ever. And, given the men of heart, head, and hand for the task, the government of the kingdoms of this world will yet become a fulfilment of the great prayer of Jesus: "Thy will be done ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... that news came of a severe accident to Alison Cunningham, Louis's old nurse—a misfortune which resulted in her death within a few weeks. Mrs. Stevenson always felt an especial tenderness for "Cummy," as the one whose kind hand had tended her beloved husband in his infancy, and she very ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... reward or their punishment almost immediately. Then the people say: "It is the finger of God!" In other cases, again, and these are the most numerous, the reaction is postponed; the noble-hearted man, who has made sacrifices the whole of his life, seems to receive in exchange nothing but misfortune and pain, whilst close by the wicked, selfish man prospers and thrives exceedingly. Thereupon the ignorant say: "There is no God, for there is ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... was educated by Dr. Burton; and in 1740 he stood first on the list of scholars who were to be received at New College. No vacancy, however, occurred, and the circumstance is said by Johnson to have been the original misfortune of his life. He became a commoner of Queen's,[1] whence, on the 29th of July, 1741, he was elected a demy of Magdalen College. During his stay at Queen's he was distinguished for genius and indolence, and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... glory, the gardens are gorgeous in their fresh verdure, the clear waters of the Bosporus glitter like brightly polished metal. But what a day of humiliation and terror was this day of May, 1453! In the early morning tidings of misfortune were disseminated among the citizens. The Turkish Sultan had stormed in through the walls with his innumerable troops. Beside themselves with fright, men, women, and children fled to St. Sophia, leaving their homes and goods to be plundered. A hundred thousand persons rushed in and locked ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... present malign humor? Perhaps the latter, perhaps both. Thou ill-starred Parent, who like an Ostrich hadst to leave thy ill-starred offspring to be hatched into self-support by the mere sky-influences of Chance, can thy pilgrimage have been a smooth one? Beset by Misfortune thou doubtless hast been; or indeed by the worst figure of Misfortune, by Misconduct. Often have I fancied how, in thy hard life-battle, thou wert shot at, and slung at, wounded, hand-fettered, hamstrung, browbeaten and bedevilled by the Time-Spirit (Zeitgeist) in thyself ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... his misfortune, and hastened to my uncle with a determination to reveal to him all that had occurred. Sir William was in his dressing-room, and his gentleman was very busy in adorning his wig. I entreated him to dismiss the coiffeur, and then, without much preliminary detail, acquainted him with all ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... misunderstanding. Always I was the offender and the final penitent until this last trouble that was now beginning; and in between we had some tender near moments, and I loved her very greatly. There was this misfortune in the business, that in the darkness, and alone, I thought with great intensity of her, of her eyes, of her touch, of her sweet and delightful presence, but when I sat down to write I thought of Shelley and Burns and myself, ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... round to the right and wedge the Boers in between its artillery and the force on Nicholson's Nek. But suppose anything happened to Carleton? Or suppose that the main action was lost? In either case disaster would be inevitable. In the event, French was alone able to stick to his time table. Misfortune befell both Carleton on the left, and Grimwood on ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... said Haguna, "that we must dismount, and find our way on foot. If now we could have deciphered the hieroglyphs of the shadows, we might have avoided this misfortune." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... withdraw to his tent. His chief fault is his overweening haughtiness, due to an over-exalted opinion of his position, which leads him to insult Chryses and Achilles, thereby bringing great disaster upon the Greeks. But his family had been marked out for misfortune from the outset. His kingly office had come to him from Pelops through the blood-stained hands of Atreus and Thyestes, and had brought with it a certain fatality which. explained the hostile destiny ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... with playful emphasis. "I fear I've not trained him up as fathers should be trained, for he coolly told me that if I had not had the misfortune to be a girl, I might perhaps have turned out as good a ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... one of them, with his hat upon his head, would dash off a polka, after placing his lighted cigar upon the edge of the piano. These fast fellows frightened Amedee a little, as he had the misfortune ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... liberty. Very chary indeed had he been of showing himself outside the door on Saturday, once he was safely within it. Neither had any misfortune befallen Lord Hartledon. That unconscious victim must have contrived, in all innocence, to "dodge" the gentleman who was looking out for him, ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Thus this misfortune happened. Helena, as has been before related, endeavored to keep pace with Demetrius when he ran away so rudely from her; but she could not continue this unequal race long, men being always better runners in a long race ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... by her indisposition to change her traditional policy and to be content to rely on the settlement of specific differences for the good feeling that always tends to result. She had, it is true, the misfortune for so strong a nation to have been born a hundred years too late. She had got less in Africa than she might have had. We were ready to help her to a place in the sun there and elsewhere in the world, and to give up something for this end, if only ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... says, we may, by God's grace, be happier than we look for, in being suffered to enjoy ourself with his majesty's favour. But if we be not able to live to it, I for my part shall think myself a pattern of misfortune, in enjoying so great a blessing as you, so little awhile. No separation but that deprives me of the comfort of you. For wheresoever you be, or in what state soever you are, it sufficeth me you are mine! Rachel wept, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... at the faces around. His ears were bending down under the weight of his battered felt hat. The torn tails of his black coat flapped in fringes about the calves of his legs. He unbuttoned the only two buttons that remained and every one saw that he had no shirt under it. It was his deserved misfortune that those rags which nobody could possibly be supposed to own looked on him as if they had been stolen. His neck was long and thin; his eyelids were red; rare hairs hung about his jaws; his shoulders were peaked and drooped like the ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... tufted thickets, and, attacking him with his campilan, cleft open his head. Ubal was the brother of Silonga, and owner of the only cow in all that country. He killed it three days previous to this misfortune, and, inviting his friends to the feast, promised to kill the most distinguished person of the Spaniards in that war. He fulfilled his word, for Estevan Rodriguez fell, from his wound, and died three days afterward, without having answered a single word to the questions asked him, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... know, my child, that I have not been without misfortune in this life. When I lost your dear mother my heart was for a long time like a dry and barren garden, whose soil, burned by the sun, cracks open, and seems to sigh for rain. In this way I languished, thirsting for consolation, and ...
— The Basket of Flowers • Christoph von Schmid
... zeal, his penetrating intelligence not less than his saintly life and his tireless charity recommended him to men of all creeds and of none. His departure from Boston was regarded by all its citizens as a public misfortune, and by himself as cause for profound personal sorrow. He had learned there a lesson of liberty which he found it hard to forget when he went away. One of his biographers records that Charles X., whose offer to make him Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs Cheverus had declined, ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... of that kind often grow up, a rambling, heedless varlet, tossed about in all quarters of the world, meeting with more perils and wonders than did Sinbad the Sailor, without growing a whit more wise, prudent, or ill-natured. Under every misfortune he comforted himself with a quid of tobacco, and the truly philosophic maxim that "it will be all the same thing a hundred years hence." He was skilled in the art of carving anchors and true lovers' knot on the bulk-heads and quarter railings, and was considered a great wit on board ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... UNCLE: I seat myself by the stand to write for the last time, to thee and thy family. Though far from home, and overtaken by misfortune, I have not forgotten you. Your generous hospitality toward me during my short stay with you last Spring is stamped indelibly upon my heart; and also the generosity bestowed upon my poor brother, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... this sort, if kept up for a generation or two, will work wonders, and this sustained him; and the Duchess knew it, and it sustained her; in fact, all the ducal family, knowing that it was only a matter of a generation or two, took their misfortune very cheerfully. ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... him the office of Patriarch, in accordance with an unpublished "revelation." The principal business of the Patriarch was to dispense "blessings," which were regarded by the faithful as a sort of charm, to ward off misfortune. Joseph, Sr., awarded these blessings without charge when he began dispensing them at Kirtland, but a High Council held there in 1835 allowed him $10 a week while blessing the church. After his formal anointing in 1836 he was known as Father Smith, and the next ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... says the Sergeant. "Human life, Mr. Betteredge, is a sort of target—misfortune is always firing at it, and always hitting the mark. But for that outfit, we should have discovered a new nightgown or petticoat among Rosanna's things, and have nailed her in that way. You're not at a loss to follow me, are you? You have examined the servants yourself, ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... being arranged, men were sent round to visit the jails, and choose from among the prisoners those who were really good men and who through misfortune, rather than roguery, found themselves in prison. The Commissioners refused to take lazy or bad men, or those who, in going to Georgia, would leave wife or children in want at home. Besides poor debtors those who were being persecuted because of their religion in any European ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... I sought forgetfulness and consolation. I went to Padua, Verona, Milan; but heaviness did not leave my heart. Then came an irrepressible longing to be back in Venice, to see Maria—a foreboding of some new misfortune. I hastened back to Venice. The podesta received me kindly; but when I inquired after Maria, he seemed to me to become grave, as he told me she had gone to Padua on a short visit. During supper I fell into a swoon, followed by a violent fever in which ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... vessel, the Stephano, a British passenger liner plying regularly between New York, Halifax, N. S., and St. John's, Newfoundland. Among the Stephano's passengers were a number of Americans, who, like their companions in misfortune, had to seek the doubtful safety of small boats ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... and queen murdered; he has seen all these miseries and infamies,' pursued the lawyer, with a rising inflection and a heightening colour; and then broke suddenly off,—'In short, sir, he has seen all the advantages of that government for which his nephew carries arms, and he has the misfortune not ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... haven't; and what's more you never will. Not that it's your fault, Tavy, dear, it's only your misfortune." Exasperating patronage was audible in her voice. Champney noted that a trace of the rich Irish brogue was left. "Here, give ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... against him had to speak first, and being in dreadfully good spirits (for he had, in the last trial, very nearly procured the acquittal of a young gentleman who had had the misfortune to murder his father) he spoke up, you may be sure; telling the jury that if they acquitted this prisoner they must expect to suffer no less pangs and agonies than he had told the other jury they would certainly ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... of the Governess of the Children of France. "I went to the bed of Monseigneur. He was awakened. He was not surprised, and said nothing, and allowed himself to be dressed. Not so with Mademoiselle. I told her gently of the misfortune that had come upon her family. I was agitated. She questioned me, asking where was bon-papa. I told her that he was still in Paris, but was coming to Saint Cloud; then I added: 'Your bon-papa, Mademoiselle, ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... conduct throughout the evening. In what particular had it been sinful? In no particular. True, the accident to the boy was a misfortune, but had he not borne that misfortune lightly, minimized it and endeavoured to teach others to bear it lightly? His blithe humour ought surely to have been an example to Nellie! And as for the episode of the funeral march on the Pianisto, really, really, the tiresome little ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... feeling instantly assailed me;—a prophetic instinct that some terrible misfortune menaced me; an eager and overpowering anxiety to get back to my own room without loss of time. I turned and ran blindly along the dark cypress alley, every dusky clump of flowers that rose blackly in the borders making my heart each moment ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... afflicted." Yet another member of the company, one Cailche, scurrilously abused and cursed Mochuda. To him Mochuda said:—"Dysentery will attack you immediately and murrain that will cause your death." The misfortune foretold befell him and indeed woeful misfortune and ill luck pursued many of them for their part in the wrong doing. When the king saw these things he became furious and, advancing—himself and the abbot of Cluain Earaird—they took each a hand of Mochuda and in a ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... a Remedy, as a deadly Sickness is a Reformer; and I had rather hope that sumptuary Laws against Dress, Racing, Gaming, &c. if we were Wise enough to make them, and amendable enough to mind them when made, wou'd do our Business much better. 'Tis a Misfortune for Ireland, that our Spendthrifts so often run out their Lives and their Estates together, and so their Examples are lost on us; for I ever thought it a Pity, they shou'd not live forty or fifty Years in beggary, their own Lives are such a Torment to them, and they ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... procured some food was increased by the thought that I had thereby saved the life of my friend Colindo, who, without it, would have assuredly died of starvation, for he knew no one in the army except me and Col. Sacleux, who was shortly to be struck down by a dreadful misfortune. ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... fine face was changed from a cheerful to a pensive cast. It was not actual sorrow which threw a shade over her clear brow, but she looked as if she had encountered some unexpected misfortune, and was prepared to meet it with resignation. She passed her small white hand slowly across her forehead, and I thought I saw tears trembling in her eyes. My interest was deeply excited, and I loved her better for ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... returned after an hour's absence, Louise rushed up to her with red-rimmed eyes, and cried: "Oh, Lottie, I have met with a great misfortune. Through ignorance, I damaged the beautiful painting. Come ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... ill-luck became his bed-fellow, and whatever he touched he turned, not to gold, but to ashes. His most vivid conception of a supernatural element in the world's affairs had come to him once when this pertinacity of misfortune was at its climax; there seemed to him something stronger in life than his own will. But the mysterious something could only be the devil, and he was accordingly seized with an intense personal enmity ...
— The American • Henry James
... property of the “public” than is any private gentleman; and we have always felt with him that the prevalence in our time of the opposite opinion has fashioned so intolerable a yoke for the neck of any one who has had the misfortune to pass from the sweet paradise of obscurity into the vulgar purgatory of Fame, that it almost behoves a man of genius to avoid, if he can, passing into that ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... can't growl," laughed Callisto—it was evident that the unfortunate woman was not taking her misfortune too seriously. "Only I wish you'd tell people who come here that while I undoubtedly am a bear, I have not yet lost my womanly taste, and I don't want to be fed all the time on buns. If anybody ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... Metaphysics. He asked if I had not lately had "una disgrazia qualunque." I reminded him of the theft of our fish, but that did not satisfy him, he considered it too trivial, though he had made enough fuss about it at the time, and 17, which in Sicily is one of the numbers for an ordinary misfortune, was too general. It seemed a pity I had not been involved in the fall of a balcony because that was a very good thing to bet on and he knew it had a number, although he did not remember it at the ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... only these but far more. His life had been a chivalrous one with all the best that chivalry stands for, "loyalty, honesty, generosity, courage, courtesy, and self-devotion; to impute no unworthy motives and to bear no grudges; to bear misfortune with cheerfulness and without a murmur; to strike hard for the right and to take no mean advantage; to be gentle to women and kind to all that are weak; to be rigorous with oneself and very lenient to others—these ... were the traits ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... said he; "the young are right to amuse themselves, for when they grow old, and suffer, and see so much of injustice, selfishness, and misfortune, everything is ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... and you know it, Bainbridge," he contradicted, speaking slowly lest his temper should break bounds. "Is it my fault, or only my misfortune, that I can do nothing but write books for which I can't find a publisher? Or that the work of a hack-writer is quite as impossible for me ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... had walked for a long time he felt a little weary and sat down to refresh himself in the shadow of a great tree. Hard by there was a house of rugged stone. Long years ago it had been a castle, and, even now, though patched by time and misfortune its front was warlike and frowning. While he sat a young woman came along the road and stood gazing earnestly at this house. Her hair was as black as night and as smooth as still water, but her face came so stormily forward ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... said Wyatt, answering for himself. "He's got a habit of talking to one as if he were a prince of the blood dropping a gracious word to one of the three Small-Heads at the Hippodrome, but that's his misfortune. We all have our troubles. That's his. Let's go in here. It's too far to ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... account of respect for his memory, for it merits little respect; not on account of sympathy for him, for his bloody deed places him without the pale of sympathy, strictly speaking, but out of a mere humane commiseration for him, in that it was his misfortune to live in a dark age that knew not the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... table, like the first-born of King Theseus, with two wax-lights and a fire at dawn or nightfall dancing to the prattle and laughter, a bright child, never stupidly weary. At times his very happiness would seem to her like a menace of misfortune to come. Was there not with herself the curse of that unsisterly action? and not far from him, the terrible danger of the father's, the step-mother's jealousy, the mockery of those half- brothers to ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... not be long before she herself approached me. For two days, therefore, I devoted my attention to Mlle. Blanche. The poor General was in despair! To fall in love at fifty-five, and with such vehemence, is indeed a misfortune! And add to that his widowerhood, his children, his ruined property, his debts, and the woman with whom he had fallen in love! Though Mlle. Blanche was extremely good-looking, I may or may not be understood when I say that she had one of those faces which ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... he replied by dancing a hornpipe in the room in their presence, showing something of that exhilaration of spirit which the Scotch called being "fey" and which they regard as a presage of approaching misfortune. He went out, and within a few minutes fell from the high beams down to the floor and ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... dead; he had no worldly ties: he loved only his calling, and the studies belonging to it; and he did not wish to think of foolish and forbidden things. His extraordinary beauty—the beauty of a living idol—was only a misfortune. Wealth was offered him under conditions that he could not even discuss. Girls threw themselves at his feet, and prayed him in vain to love them. Love-letters were constantly being sent to him, letters which never brought a reply. Some were written in that classical enigmatic style which speaks ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... see it quite plainly and distinctly now. Yes, that is no man, but a veritable piece of parchment, and I recognize, too, the imperial seal and the Emperor's handwriting. Where were my eyes that I did not see it from the first, and what a stupid fool I was to suppose that I saw a man there! What misfortune would have ensued if I had defaced the Emperor's handwriting ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... traces of the Breton love of country and other national traits. The death-bird alluded to is a grey bird which sings during the winter in the Landes country in a voice soft and sad. It is probably a bird of the osprey species. It is thought that the girl who hears it sing is doomed to misfortune. The strange and ghostly journey of the unhappy Tina recalls the mise en scene of such ballads as The Bride of Satan, and it would seem that she passes through the Celtic Tartarus. It is plain that the ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... gave him several years in prison, an experience which cast a stigma on his name and which made it impossible for him, for many years after, to obtain honest employment. But the world is richer, and safer, by Muller's early misfortune. For it was this experience which threw him back on his own peculiar talents for a livelihood, and drove him into the police force. Had he been able to enter any other profession, his genius might have been stunted to a mere pastime, instead ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. I cannot concur in a blind and servile address, which approves and endeavors to sanctify the monstrous measures which have heaped disgrace and misfortune upon us. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment! It is not ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... with infinite venom the unhappy violator of his laws; not theirs to deal out curious metaphysics and cold abstractions, giving a stone for bread and an adder for an egg to the sons of sorrow and the daughters of misfortune; but to inspire hope in the desponding and peace in the troubled bosom; to give light for darkness, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; to bring back the lost to their FATHER'S house, and raise ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... some misfortune does not befall you, like a long sickness in the family, or an accident ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... used to get up in an oak that overhung the water, each with a catapult, and, firing bullets from these india-rubber weapons on the water-rats underneath, slew nearly every one of them. The few left had evidently learnt extreme caution from the misfortune of their friends, and no longer trusted themselves away from the water, into which they could slip at ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... I have nothing more to say, except that, with you, I sigh for your misfortunes; I blamed you a short time since, now I pity you. But since in a misfortune [i.e. an ill-timed love] so sweet and so painful, your noble spirit [lit. virtue] contends against both its charm and its strength, and repulses its assault and regrets its allurements, it will restore calmness ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille
... as if I should almost go mad over my undeserved fame; fortune seeks me out and I almost fear new misfortune on ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... fellows had disappeared from the field of the buffalo hunt and it was to the embankment that my Indians were anxiously looking. Three thin smoke lines were rising from the prairie. I knew enough of Indian lore to recognize this tribal signal as a warning to the Sioux band of some misfortune. Was Miriam within range of those smoke signals? Now was my opportunity. I could offer Diable in exchange for the Sioux captives. Meanwhile, we had him secure. He would not be found till the hunt was over and the carts ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... chains in the triumphal procession of his victorious enemy. But he is proud and beautiful still in adversity. And looks follow him as well as the fortunate one who has conquered him. Beauty's tears and wreaths belong to him still, even in misfortune. ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... and to the ring was tied a string, by which the Camel's master used to lead him about. As the Camel grazed, this leading-string became entangled in a bush, and the Camel could not get it loose. This misfortune so much confused the mind of the Camel that he did not ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... chance shot, and, even with this acknowledgment, it must appear rather like the 'marvellous' to a stranger;—this is my misfortune, not my fault. I certainly never made such a shot before or since; it was a sheer lucky hit, say at 600 yards; and the wonderful power of the rifle was thus displayed in the ball perforating the large body of the buffalo ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... comforter. Besides, Mr. Tryan had never paid any distant visit, except one for a few days to his father, and no hint escaped him of his intending to take a house, or change his mode of living. No! he could not be engaged, though he might have been disappointed. But this latter misfortune is one from which a devoted clergyman has been known to recover, by the aid of a fine pair of grey eyes that beam on him with affectionate reverence. Before Christmas, however, her cogitations began to take another turn. She heard her father say very confidently ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... STOICS.—Their most frequently repeated maxim is "abstain and endure"; abstain from all evil, suffer all aggression and so-called misfortune without rebelling or complaining. Another precept widely propagated among them and by them, "Live according to nature," remarkably resembles an Epicurean maxim. This must be made clear. This precept as they interpreted it meant: adhere ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... had ever thought of colonisation. With them their present industry was the result of accident and necessity. Their tastes and longings were very different. They longed to return to civilised life; and though the very misfortune which had driven them forth into the wilderness had also guided them to an opportunity of making a fortune, it is probable they would have passed it by, had they not known that, penniless as they ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... misfortune, to be called to the office of Chief Executive without any previous political training. From the age of 17 I had never even witnessed the excitement attending a Presidential campaign but twice antecedent to my ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... Henry Jones were or were not the owner of Llanfeare. "Of course I know all that; but you are hardly to expect that a man is to come and assert himself amidst a cloud of difficulties when he has just undergone such a misfortune as that! You have had your fling, and are not to be punished for it. That ought to ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... said he; "welcome, gentlemen! Some one spoke of a party of prisoners; I had no hope of such good fortune as to meet with guests. But you must have met with some misfortune, in which case let ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... Manet or Whistler, Monet's nerves have never prompted him to extravagances. Backbiters declare that Monet is suffering from an optical degeneration—poor, overworked word! Monet sees better, sees more keenly than his fellow-men. What a misfortune! Ibsen and Wagner suffered, too, from superior brains. If Monet ever suffered seriously from a danger to his art it was—success. He was abused in the beginning, but not as severely as Manet. But success perched on Monet's palette. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... the advantages of his position. In these rooms, with his revolver and his ammunition, he felt quite at ease. He felt somewhat grieved at that moment that he did not know Italian, for he wished very much to ask some questions of the old inn-keeper; but this was a misfortune which he had ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... it were Jack!" she kept repeating as she ran. "Dear old Jack, beaten and starved, without anybody to love him or say a kind word to him." The mere thought of such misfortune ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... it, if not a feeling witness of the rigor and inhumanity of his country. All experience proves that oppressive debt is the bane of enterprise, and it should be the care of a republic not to exert a grinding power over misfortune and poverty. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Monroe had the misfortune to lose the confidence of his own government and that of the French republic at about the same time. Hoping that the house of representatives would refuse to execute the British treaty, and thus appease the French Directory, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... fortune, can have no place in nations of hunters, among whom all men, being equal in fortune, must likewise be very nearly equal in birth. The son of a wise and brave man may, indeed, even among them, be somewhat more respected than a man of equal merit, who has the misfortune to be the son of a fool or a coward. The difference, however will not be very great; and there never was, I believe, a great family in the world, whose illustration was entirely derived from the ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... chair and gazed for a few minutes round his bedroom. Then he rang his bell, ordered the servant to make the bed immediately, and presently went out to do some shopping. On the way he sent word to the Countess, telling her only that the Baron was indisposed, but that in spite of this misfortune he hoped he should have the pleasure of their company at tea. The rest of the morning he spent in his bedroom, prudently keeping out of the ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... school who remembered the happier days of their quiet youth and ardently wished a return of that blessed period. They failed to recognise the strong hold which many of the revolutionary principles had gained upon the people of the European continent. That was a misfortune but hardly a sin. But one of the things which the French Revolution had taught not only Europe but America as well, was the right of people to ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... finding you as you are, my boy," Captain Bayley said, "for I had feared that if you were alive it must be as a vagrant, or perhaps even a criminal, that your bodily misfortune is as nothing in my eyes. This is my ward, Miss Hardy; she is something like a granddaughter to me, and is prepared to be a ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... still pacing up and down the room. But she had not spent the two hours since Arthur had left her in vain sorrow or in vainer anger. She had felt that it behoved her to resolve how she would act, and what she would do; and in those two hours she had resolved. A great misfortune, a stunning blow had fallen on her; but the fault had been with her rather than with him. She would school herself to bear the punishment, to see him occasionally, and bear with him as she would have done had he never taken those walks along the river; she would still love ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... "I heard of the misfortune; but it was by the hand of Arabi's soldiers that he fell; not that of the English. Arabi's soldiers, or plunderers who called themselves such. The English sailors caught them red-handed, and hung them up for ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... Agree Conspicuous Indifferent Shrewd Anger Cringe Misfortune Shudder Attempt Difficult Obey Skill Big Disconnect Object (noun) Soft Brute Erratic Object (verb) Splash Business Flash Obligation Success Careless Fragrant Occupied Sweet Climb Gain Oppose Trick Collect Generous Persist Wash Commanding Grim Revise Worship ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... most authentic records, my dear children," said Grandfather, "the chair, about this time, had the misfortune to break its leg. It was probably on account of this accident, that it ceased to be the seat of the governors of Massachusetts; for, assuredly, it would have been ominous of evil to the commonwealth, if the ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... It was the misfortune of Collins to be involved with the parties responsible in the deposition of Governor Bligh. This remarkable deviation from the ordinary conduct of British soldiers, has been attributed partly to the composition of the military force raised for that colony, and partly to the temper ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... loss of the young queens in the parent stock after it has swarmed, and in the after-swarms, is a very common occurrence, a hive which like mine, furnishes the means of easily remedying this misfortune, will greatly promote the success of those who practice natural swarming. A very intelligent bee-keeper once assured me, that he must use at least one such hive in his Apiary, for this purpose, even if in other respects it possessed ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... of embroidery and toy-making which did not prevent the little one from growing very large and remaining very poor. They both dwelt at Reims, on the river front, Rue de Folle-Peine. Mark this: For I believe it was this which brought misfortune to Paquette. In '61, the year of the coronation of our King Louis XI. whom God preserve! Paquette was so gay and so pretty that she was called everywhere by no other name than "la Chantefleurie"—blossoming song. Poor girl! She had handsome ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... unscientifically fails to perceive that these people are just as deserving of compassion as he is himself. He seems to think that, in their deafness to the call of the noble in life, these people are guilty of a crime; whereas they are only guilty of a misfortune. The one other slip that George Ponderevo has made is a slight yielding to the temptation of caricature, out of place in a realistic book. Thus he names a half-penny paper, "The Daily Decorator," and a journalistic peer, "Lord Boom." Yet the few lines in which he hints ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... King. Believe me," said she, "that I would have striven and striven to win you back." There was so much feeling in her voice that her seven brothers, although they had been hardened by thinking about their misfortune, were touched at their hearts and they flew down to help her. They bore up her arms, they caught at her shoulders, they raised up her feet. They carried her beyond the marsh. Then she knelt down and cried to them, "O my brothers dear, is there anything I can do ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... eighteenth-century schools. It was founded by Christian Samuel Friedrich Hahnemann (1755-1843), a most remarkable man, who, after propounding a theory in his younger days which was at least as reasonable as most of the existing theories, had the misfortune to outlive his usefulness and lay his doctrine open to ridicule by the unreasonable ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... heavily visited than England. The disease seems to have scarcely reached the mountainous districts of that kingdom; and Scotland, too, would, perhaps, have remained free had not the Scots availed themselves of the misfortune of the English, to make an irruption into their territory, which terminated in the destruction of their army, by the plague and by the sword, and the extension of the pestilence, through those who ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... that the offspring of any individual tend to increase in geometric ratio, will supply adequate grounds for holding this conviction:—that from a biological point of view, every child of congenitally inferior character is a racial misfortune. The Spartans and other peoples of antiquity fully realized this fact, and acted on it by exposing deformed infants. Christianity properly revolted as such an action; but in repudiating the action, it lost sight of the principle back of the action. The principle should ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... more splendidly applauded, and none more bitterly dispraised. It is in one sense the misfortune of our age that it is little able to do either. If steadfast adherence to what he thought the perfect way, if the most earnest purpose, the most unwearying labour, the profoundest devotion to his God and his country are enough ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... even down to a time when a strong reaction in the direction of positive religious feeling had set in, is proved by the romances of the time. The novels of the ancients were in general poor productions. Most of them are made after the recipe of a little misfortune in each chapter and great happiness in the last. The two lovers meet, fall in love, part, and suffer a series of troubles individually until they are finally united. The power that governs their fates and shapes everything according to this pattern is regularly Tyche, never ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... for the want of means to discontinue manufacturing, and Mr. Hayward left his employment. The inventor now applied himself alone, with unabated ardor and diligence, to detect the cause of his misfortune and if possible to retrieve the lost reputation of his invention. On one occasion he made some experiments to ascertain the effect of heat upon the same compound that had decomposed in the articles previously ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... The misfortune is that on the one side every detail of negotiation is confounded with the general principles of our Foreign Policy, and on the other a censure upon a Foreign Policy, the tendency of which has been to leave despotism and democracy to fight out their own battles, will imply in the eyes of Europe ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... love, long since, thou from this breast Hast flown, that was so warm, so ardent, once. Misfortune in her cold and cruel grasp Has held it fast, and it to ice has turned, E'en in the flower of my youth. The time I well recall, when thou this heart didst fill; That sweet, irrevocable time it was, ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... had been the misfortune of the M. N. 1 that she poked her tail into a mass of this long, tough grass, which was now ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... (To herself again.) I am sorry I did not ask him to hand me back two. We are going to lose! Good heavens! it is sure we lose! Ah, the cards! Bad, that's sure! O, what emotion! O good heavens! Seven! But the bank! No, we gain! O—— O good heavens! Good heavens! what emotion! We gain! What a misfortune I didn't leave the extra louis! It is disgusting! I regret it now. O, I regret it very much! But it is always like that with me! Are we going to be paid? I don't think so! No, we won't be paid! It is always like that; when one loses one is taken, and when one wins one is never paid! O good ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... don't know where to begin. Probably I shall not know where to leave off, either. That is my usual misfortune, to write a chapter at both ends. It is a fatal thing, like the doubly-consuming candle. Perhaps I might start with the sapience of Hector MacQuarrie, author of Tahiti Days. I am tempted to, because so many people think of W. Somerset ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... his temper. Consequently she excused her son and blamed her daughter-in-law. If there were a mild cyclone roused between the two married people the son would turn to his mother to hear what a martyr he was and what misfortune he had to bear in having been so easily mistaken in the woman he married. Thus the mother-in-law, who felt that she was protecting her poor son, was really breeding dissension between two people who could have been the best ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... faithful. They reward those who serve them with various forms of blessings; give them advice concerning all the affairs of life from the planting of their crops to the training of their children. They claim supernatural powers to confer good and invoke evil, and the curse of a fakir is the last misfortune that an honest Hindu cares to bring upon himself, for it means a failure of his harvests, the death of his cattle by disease, sickness in his family and bad luck in everything that he undertakes. Hence ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... the means employed in India to test guilt in the earlier period. Then comes the oath with judgment indicated by subsequent misfortune. All other forms of ordeals are first recognized in late law-books. We speak first of the ordeals that have been thought to be primitive Aryan. The Fire-ordeal: (1) Seven fig-leaves are tied seven times upon the hands after rice ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... about himself. Enough was left to convince one egregious London daily paper not only that Matthew Arnold was the author, but that the special object of his new satire was Sir Charles Dilke, "a clever young man who fancies that his prejudices are ideas, and who, if he had the misfortune to be made King, would stir up a revolution ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... longer followed by Wool, because Old Hurricane, partly upon account of his misadventure in having had the misfortune inadvertently "to lose sight of" his mistress upon that memorable occasion of the metamorphosis of Cap into Clara and partly because of the distant absence of Le Noir, did not ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... The great misfortune of the astrologers is that the sky has changed since the rules of the art were established. The sun, which at the equinox was in Aries in the time of the Argonauts, is to-day in Taurus; and the astrologers, to the great ill-fortune of their art, ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... evening before the consulate, and the city gave him a handsome silver service. An Englishman who visited him in Bristol records the impression that Kosciuszko made on all who saw him, of one whose whole being breathed devotion to his country. The same witness speaks of a soul unbroken by misfortune, by wounds, poverty, and exile; of an eagle glance, of talk full of wit ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... my darling," said Will, in a low thrilling voice, in which intense feeling struggled with the desire to make light of his misfortune; "God has sent a cordial that the doctors haven't got ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... the asramas is the condition of standing within an asrama. The latter state may be due to misfortune; but he who can should be within an asrama, which state is the more holy and beneficial one. This follows from inference only, i.e. Smriti; for Smriti says, 'A Brahmana is to remain outside the asramas not even for one day.' For one who has passed beyond the stage of Brahmakarya, or whose wife ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... it is my misfortune, as an early riser, to live upon a certain fashionable avenue, where the practice of early rising is confined exclusively to domestics. Consequently, when I issue forth on this broad, beautiful thoroughfare at six A. M., I cannot help thinking that ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... to prevent this misfortune, Henry did the very worst thing he possibly could; he began to run and cry, "Mag! Mag!" with a raised voice, whilst the bird, as if resolved to torment him, hopped forward across the other field, perched herself ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... not failings common to all persons in public business in such a time, yet he blessed God that he was able to make the falsehood of every article of his charge appear, that he had done nothing with a wicked mind, but with many others had the misfortune to do many things, the unforeseen events of ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... issued from the prison. Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped. It may be true, that, to a sensitive observer, there was something exquisitely painful in it. Her attire, which, indeed, she had wrought for the occasion, in prison, and had modelled ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... empty zealots, to whom nature hath denied any talent that could be of use to God or their country, and left them only the gift of reviling, and spitting their venom, against all who differ from them in their destructive principles, both in church and state. That he confessed, it was sometimes his misfortune to dislike some things in public proceedings in both kingdoms, wherein he had often the honour to agree with wise and good men; but this did by no means affect either his loyalty to his prince, or love to his country. But, on the contrary, he protested, that such dislikes never arose in him ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... as I slept, the misfortune that I had watched against fell upon me. For now my men spoke together and said, "There is our native land, and we come back to it after ten years' struggles and toils, with empty hands. Different it is with our lord, Odysseus. He brings gold and silver ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... the country—we trust we shall not hereafter be compelled to add, only for a time—from its great impending misfortune. The circulation in England became metallic, with what success it is not for us to say, whilst Scotland was allowed to retain her paper currency with at least most perfect satisfaction to herself. One pregnant fact, however, it would be unpardonable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... been returned were festooned with misfortune. The Wildcat had overlooked a bet. He curried the gallopers to blood heat in his magenta palm. "Houn' dog headed home wid rabbit hair in yo' teeth! Turkey dice, gobble dat coin. ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... heard. Was there any one in the fields yet? I pulled myself up, using my feet as a spring, resting on one of the dead, whose ribs were firm. You may suppose that this was not the moment for saying, 'Respect courage in misfortune!' In short, monsieur, after enduring the anguish, if the word is strong enough for my frenzy, of seeing for a long time, yes, quite a long time, those cursed Germans flying from a voice they heard where they could see no one, I was dug out by a woman, who was ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... that he had already, more than once, spoilt his wife's calculations and failed to support her views. She and Georges, whatever private feeling might be, thought it impossible to put off this ball because of the misfortune that happened to Angelot. They would be understood to show sympathy with the Chouans. Then he abused me well, poor Herve," said Monsieur Joseph, amiably. "He said, as Urbain did, that I had ruined Angelot's ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... land of Han; and, through their dread and mysterious protection, was preserved to daybreak. After daybreak, the Brahmans deliberated together and said, "It is having this Sramana on board which has occasioned our misfortune and brought us this great and bitter suffering. Let us land the bhikshu and place him on some island-shore. We must not for the sake of one man allow ourselves to be exposed to such imminent peril." A patron of Fa-hien, however, said to them, ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... absolute when it is a second name that can be tucked away if unpresentable, but even then it is a misfortune. There is C——, now, who won't marry, I believe, chiefly because of the insane "Annie" with which she was smitten at the baptismal font by an afterthought. She regards it as a taint in her constitution which orders her to a lonely ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... please, and listen to reason," beseeched the lawyer, drawing him resolutely in the direction of a side entrance. "It would be a dire misfortune, sir, a calamity to the community, if the bank were forced to close its doors. So far, however, it is only the small depositors who are clamoring; but the others will quickly enough follow if you do not let your fifty thousand remain to help wipe out this first rush. The ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... understand a word Of English, save their shibboleth, "God damn!"[565] And even that he had so rarely heard, He sometimes thought 't was only their "Sal[-a]m," Or "God be with you!"—and 't is not absurd To think so,—for half English as I am (To my misfortune), never can I say I heard them wish "God with you," save ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... nobility. The offspring of this compromise is the Constitution of the German Empire, the provisions of which strive to reconcile the interests of these three factors. Finally, even a man like Bismarck had to leave his post. 'What a misfortune for Germany!' cried the press devoted to him. Well, what has happened to Germany since then? Even Bismarck himself could not have ruled it much differently than it has been ruled since ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... unconscious expression of a really felt philosophy. And, after all, was he not right? What was this life they all lived but a ceaseless worrying over what was to come? Was not all man's unhappiness caused by nervous anticipations of the future? Was not that the disease, and the misfortune, of the age; perhaps of all the countless ages man had ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... doing it," said his daughter, "and my mother used to worry over it. She declared that of all things earthly, papa loved an unfortunate person; the greater the misfortune, the greater ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... will tell it at once. You seem agitated. The harpies, whom I pass'd in your shop, inform'd me of your sudden misfortune, but do not ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman |
